In recent years, and especially after the Covid-19 pandemic, digital payments and online shopping have increased in the euro area, while cash has fallen as a total share of payments from 72% to 59% between 2019 and 2022 and the number of banknotes in circulation fell for the first time last year. Following this trend, in October 2021 the ECB launched a study phase on the possibility of issuing its own central bank digital currency (CBDC), the digital euro, to provide an additional form of public money in the euro area. In June 2023, the EU Commission proposed the legal framework that could pav…